


reset, restart and then replay

by secretsarenotforfree



Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [3]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M, Guy Thoughts, Interruptions Ft. Javi of All People, Kate Ain't Never Been Slick, Second Perspectives, at least not in the not fun way, idk this wasn't initially the plan, okay so i lied there's gonna be another part, where do we go from here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28105986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: And for the record, no, he took that picture himself. After thirty minutes of brainstorming, fifteen perching his phone just so on his laptop, and another ten of timed pictures that ended in wrong angles or blurry photos from it sliding down just when he had the pose perfect. Kate laughs, later, so hard that she almost wheezes at the blurry ones where it’s all one big fuzzy eye the crooked line of his nose and hair that looks like its free falling through space.He is not insulted at all when she makes it his contact picture.
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: stupid cupid, stop hitting on me [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034472
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	reset, restart and then replay

**Author's Note:**

> i conjured most of this idea while staring at the ceiling waiting for my doctor to come in for my damn appointment. this WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SPEND AS MUCH TIME IN THIS AREA OF THE FIC. but it did. and here we fucking are. and it's going to need another. damn. part.
> 
> i really should've stopped while i was ahead.
> 
> (this is dedicated to jana because i don't fucking deserve her, we been knew)
> 
> title from 'like u' by niki, a song which is both a Bop and the Feelings of this Damn Fic

She tries hard not to act like Castle’s touch doesn’t suddenly burns.

She tries really, really hard, to not let it seem like every location where whorls of his fingertips and the press of his warmth makes contact with her doesn’t suddenly scald her, but it doesn’t work. Kate yanks herself back from him so violently that she would have stumbled if it were not for his apparent iron grip on her belt loops. “Espo! Kev, hi, I was just - I was um -”

“Winning me a _bet_ , is what you were doing.” Javier crows, for once being the interrupter of their little trio, splaying his arms so wide he hits Kevin in the chest. “I knew it! I fuckin’ knew it!”

“You knew what?” She’s attempting to stall, but it can only work so well when Castle _won’t let fuckin go of her_ and Kate is denial about the fact that she’s not looking at his face because she has a sinking feeling that whatever she sees there is going to hurt her, but not as much as she’s going to see him. “There’s nothing happening here.”

“Nothing?” Castle echoes, lower and flatter than she’d ever heard his voice, and Kate makes the stupid, fucking, dumbass mistake of looking at him, because she’s spent a sizable amount of time staring at and into those eyes. Kate thought she knew every flicker and shade of dove grey and royal blue and smoky skies and calm seas in those irises, but she’d never seen this kind of blatant hurt.

“Nothing important. Nothing more than a one night stand.” Kates insists now, half to convince her and mostly to convince the boys, but it doesn’t work like it should. She wants to block out everything else and turn and yell at Castle that she is _not_ compromising a job that she knows he’s come to genuinely enjoy because she’s - because they’re _just_ sleeping together and they both knew going in that it wasn’t supposed to be anything more and he needs to stop looking at her like that or she’s going to forget about everything and kiss the sorry Kate should give him right out of him.

She wants him to say they Are important and that he is More than he should be but at the same time Kate doesn’t think she can take him saying the opposite. So she takes control of the situation and doesn’t give him the choice. 

(It takes her too long to realize that taking it away was much, much worse than giving it to him.)

Kevin, the narrowing of his eyes indicating that he has decided, it does, in fact, stink, points an accusing finger at Castle. He makes rather a picture with his baseball jersey half soaked (much like his hair), and haphazardly hung out of his pants, protective baby blues and a determined set of his mouth. “I _know_ you from somewhere.”

“No you don’t. And he’s _leaving._ ” The pot is boiling over, and Kate doesn’t care. She finally, somehow, wrests herself out of Castle’s softened grip and tries to act like she doesn’t know exactly why it loosened. She gathers up his scarf and his coat and all the bits of him that he’s carelessly strewn around her like it wouldn’t make her care for him just that bit more and shoves it at the barrel chest she knew exactly where to rest her chin at on her crossed hands to gaze at him. 

“Don’t you - aren’t you a teacher, or something? In the English program?” Ryan is damnably un-de-fucking-terred, hot on the trail of the Case of the Century. Kate wants to shove the bundle of parsley on the kitchen counter right into that stupid mouth of his. She can’t believe she forgot that Jenny was minoring in Literature and is mentally beating herself up majorly for it because _they were supposed to be more careful_.

Yes, the fun of it was why they had started, but they only spent time together places that no one from campus would see them. They were secretive and quiet in study rooms and dark classrooms and the back of his too cramped car because Castle was a _TA_ and Kate was _a student_ and this wasn’t romantic because it wasn’t allowed to be. It was forbidden to be. And she wasn’t going to jeopardize him.

(She wouldn’t risk all the memories they had on a future they couldn’t. Shouldn’t. _Wouldn’t_ have.)

Kate growls at the blonde man even whilst she forces Castle to the door he’d entered a scant twenty some minutes ago, and wishes that she had a time travel device to go back to that world's easier time. When she could meet Castle’s eyes with no fear instead of back, regressively, to where they were before, when she was too afraid to see what was in there. “Shut _up,_ Kevin!” She throws angrily over her shoulder, and only catches her breath to pause after Kate’s swung the front door open with too much force and finally whirls to face Castle.

He looks steelier than he did even moments ago. There a glass wall up in those eyes now, and he doesn’t look at her when he shrugs quickly into his coat. Stuffs the scarf into his pocket, pauses on her threshold, fastens an accusatory gaze at her like the Adams apple in that gorgeous, strong neck didn’t work, hard, once and she’d never felt like she was teetering on such a precipice before. “Secrets out, Kate.”

“Yeah.” She blew a piece of hair out of her face, opened the screen, ignored the bite of the early November air. “But it can’t be.” 

Castle studies her, so handsome on her stoop that her heart hurts. “Why?”

The wind kicks up the long strands of his flop and she wants to ask his forgiveness and pull him in by that trail of black and blue in his pocket and introduce him officially to the boys she called her other family, but she can’t. Kate won’t. And she can’t give him all the answers why _not_ that he should know because he is the older one, he should be the wiser one, and he’s on her front. Damn. Stoop. Esposito's singing to himself about all the new guns he’s about to be able to buy with his new game and Ryans’s rifling through the cupboards for snacks while verbally making his way through any teacher name he can remember like he’ll come upon Castle’s and Kate wants to scream to him that he’d never guess, because it’s not right on any of the campus material. And he’s ruining everything.

“You know why, Rick.” Kate whispers, and doesn’t know if her lips are chapped from the weather or the lack of his usual kiss goodbye against them. It is harder than it should be to drop her gaze and shut the glass screen. To close the door and wrap her arms around herself, lean back against the wood, and convince herself that it was best for them both.

And it hadn’t been one of the hugest mistakes she’d ever made.

* * *

It took him two class times to notice her.

Not good news for his usual record of noticing beautiful, interesting things, but there were reasons for. Red headed, turmoil heavy, only recently cheated on him and cratered his focus reasons that had him spending much of his introduction time to the class pulling up the version of him he usually was for appearances sake if nothing fucking else. It had been three weeks but he still did a bit of a double take when he saw a hint of strawberry blonde. Even if he had taken this position to give him something to focus on instead of the hurricane Castle hadn’t been strong enough to escape without a giant kick in the ass. 

_She_ had caused enough of a just get through it haze that it took two sessions before he noticed. Before he saw. Professor Marlowe was late, and had emailed them all why - New York traffic really could be a bitch - and class would be starting late. His mother did truly like the man, and Castle had found him sweet and a little quirky, so he made the effort. Attempted to start a loose sort of discussion with whatever students felt like participating. Rolled up the sleeves of his blue jumper and pulled down the half zipper and asked which of the Doctor’s companions did those who knew of it think was the best written.

And then, the cutest fucking bob Castle had ever seen.

The cutest bob, above a gorgeous neck, and winged collarbones. An off the shoulder top that clung in all the right placed, high buttoned slim jeans and short suede boots with a heel Castle hadn’t known could go on an ankle that delicate. She was stunning. She was drop dead gorgeous. And yet it was the _cheekbones_ that he got stuck on.

Because they were _pink_. They were rosy, and getting blushier with each minute he spent staring in the bland interim ‘Teacher’ gaze he was giving off right now but using as a cover to look at her. Those perfect, cut by some Renaissance painter cheekbones astonishingly coloring because of him, clear signs even if he hadn’t also clocked the deeply bitten lip and desperately avoiding gaze.

Castle’s not a monster. 

He’ll give her a break.

Tears his attention seemingly easily away to the middle row and keeps his peripheral gaze on the near dramatic fall of her shoulders. The hand that tears through burnt pomegranate bangs for a semblance of control and the legs that cross and then re cross and squirm in a seat in a way that Castle is old enough to know _exactly_ what that move means. _Exactly_ what is being attempted to be relieved.

And maybe it was good, the Castle hadn’t seen those first two classes. Hadn’t processed her at all. Because now that he had, he could never go _back_ to not seeing her.

He tried to be responsible about it. 

Tried to make sure that whenever he had some serious pages to crank out that he sat with his back to her, tried to notice anyone else in and outside of the class, tried to act like he didn’t have a deep ass well of curiosity about this girl who gave him moony eyes the moment she thought he wasn’t watching and yet bolted from class each day like those sky high heels were on fire. Like they hadn’t spoken a word but even he knew there was a sizzling awareness between them, even if she wasn’t ready to do anything about it yet. If she even knew that _he_ knew.

All that, and Castle knows that he’s older than her. Knows that he, for better or worse, was in a bit of a position of power and even if losing this position would probably be worth it for her, he couldn’t make bets like that if she couldn’t string together a sentence when he picks up the pen ‘he thought that she dropped’ while he passes out an activity or he drops in on the small discussion groups and she suddenly has to go to the bathroom right before Castle gets to hers.

He gets it.

He’s pretty damn handsome. (Ruggedly, some say.) 

But he’s not _scary_ , Castle thinks. It’s beginning to feel a little hurtful almost. So he digs somewhere deep, way deeper than he has before, a pulls out something that looks less like a rabbit and a lot more like patience. And it’s hard, keeping it, but it’s better than it could be. Better, because of the little things.

Now Castle’s an organized kind of guy. He might have a messy bedroom but the tiny guest room he uses as an office at home is tidy and everything is always in its place. His mind runs wild too often for him to remember everything, and it’s the only defense he has against the off topics his thought processes end up more than once. He’s put together professionally, and all that, but his emotions kind of stamp as images. As fountains of words of a perfectly captured, permanent mental image of the stuff he notices and remembers and wonders about, and he’s beginning to gather quite a lot of hers.

The graceful lines of the _K_ on _Kate_ during the once a class character submissions that he collects on near blank flashcards, the boots that he hadn’t seen a repeat pair of once, the chewed and destroyed end of what Castle’s surmised by now was probably her favorite pen. Deep brown, glossy old school shine, maybe her dads. Had the distinct, lucky ass pleasure of rolling between those impossibly delicious pink lips when she was thinking too hard to be distracted by him. Days tick by, weeks, and more pictures form, lined in description and a pale imitation of the real thing, in his mind. An imprint of the maddeningly smooth line of her jaw in his mind, a stream of descriptors for each and every outfit she wore to class. How she preferred long sleeves and leather boots and all sorts of timelessly casual outfits that fit her slim form like they were made for her and made the spit go dry in Castle’s mouth every time he glimpsed her walking away.

He finds himself impossibly entranced by way that she wrote honestly and thoughtfully for every assignment. Kate would talk around and through a topic until she would directly lay it out for you, even in her essays, and Castle finds himself saving her work for last. Saving each typed word, sent from a computer on campus far from his lower level city apartment to the schools online submission for him to grade, since Professor Marlowe preferred to only grade the bigger term papers. Her grades were always slid in just before the deadline Marlowe had set for him, of course, but it was worth it in the end. Belaboring a touch too warmly for an ostensibly neutral piece of writing but from the fact that it was written by her, before he gave it the high marks it always so richly deserved and forbade himself from looking at it again. 

He sees her, on campus, when she’s not aware of him and he’s just dropping by to eat lunch with his mother. Nearly always flanked by the same four usual suspects, eye rolling and shushing, and laughing so brightly and freely that he wants to know what drew out of her every note of mirth. Every shade of lightness that didn’t exist when she was in class with him and her shoulders drew tight in awareness and her cheeks flooded and she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

It was the elegant, perfect lines of those delicate bones that was driving him half mad more than anything else, Castle thought. How easy it was, to invent ways to get himself into her sphere or drawing her attention just to see the emotions bleed watercolor soft over the high arches. How terrible it was, that he ached to know just how far it spread, and being unable to find out. The ball has been rolling aimless and frustrated in her court for longer than Castle ever anticipated in the beginning and he’s starting to wonder if she’s ever going to do anything. If he’s going to end up telling his writer buddies at the bar about this absolutely fantastic girl that he never even exchanged a vowel with for the next few years.

And then it came.

That little, deceivingly innocuous email, with a little emoji and a pick up line that had him grinning before he even knew he was.

_You have the right to remain silent, though I doubt you will._

Thank God he had email notifications on for his taskbar. Thank God the lights were still down and everything was dim and Castle gave himself the time to write a couple options for her response and then choose the best one.

_Is the implication that I won't be quiet a double entendre about one or both of making various not safe for work noises, or are you just trying to tell me you'd learn better if I shut up in class?_

He wants to hear her make all the not safe for work noises. He wants to work his lips from those perfect cheekbones to those pretty lips to her slim throat and all the way down. He wants to do a lot of things and not a damn one includes shutting up, not if he's talking to her.

(What he _wants_ to do is keep his chill. He thinks he’s doing pretty okay.)

He baits her, with that last one. Knows that he is. _What're the chances that if I turn around right now you'll be looking at me too?_ In complete honesty, he’s been looking too. But she doesn’t seem to know that. And Castle doesn’t know why he should tell when he could just show. He stretches an arm over the back of the empty chairs he’s ringed by and fastens his eyes, finally, on her. Doesn’t try to put anything in his gaze to disguise any attention, and has the particular joy of watching her mind work. Her eyebrows furrow, that one too long bang he’s longed to smooth back falls into the path of those hazel eyes he’d done his damnedest to not refer to as golden, endless enchanted forests of green and bronze and emerald and after whats felt like forever they lock eyes for real for the first time.

And the minx has the nerve to _raise a brow at him_.

Has the nerve to act like the varying hunger levels of her gaze hasn’t been branding him every damn class time and that she had sized him up before Castle had gathered together the haphazard awareness to clock her. And the ups the audacity by another couple levels by running a teasing, thoughtful tongue over the pink purse of those perfect lips.

(He deserves a freaking medal for not vaulting over the rows of seats and kissing everywhere that tongue had swept along, class and position and Marlowe be damned.

But the long game has served him well this far. Castle thinks - he’s pretty sure, now, that another email sits in his inbox and the corner of her mouth is curled upwards and the digitized lettering of her first and last name sends a fizzy kind of warmth through him from head to toe - that he can continue to wait.)

It wasn’t enough, from the promises of her eyes and her lips at that fucking bob that he wanted to dive his hands into so that he cradled her face so close that she forgot whatever caused that shyness in her, but it was enough for now. And Castle could force himself to be content with it.

He’s not ashamed to say that he coaxes.

He charms, and he teases, and he works every day to get her petals to peel back and to find out what Kate thought the point of this was. What she wanted from this. From them. Getting a _yes_ in response to an invitation of coffee feels like such a triumph it takes every cool point Castle has to not do a fist bump in his seat.

She calls him Castle and won’t let him order for her and only barely gives up the fight of him wanting to pay, and a part of him he’ll never admit is already smitten. She nearly chokes on her drink when he admits to having noticed her and he keeps his cool the whole time. He keeps it frosty and chill and a bunch of other snowy, freezing things until this girl who couldn’t make eye contact with him a bit more than a week ago fastens big, suddenly confident hazel hues on him and asks if he would be interested in fucking her _when he had the time._

What -

What _kind_ of -

How did she even _have to ask that question_. Did she not have a mirror? Was she truly so unaware of the amount of wanting her he had been doing? Does she know what she’s asking? Does she know that if she’s truly giving him permission to touch her like he’s been internally begging to for way too long, that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to ever stop?

And then he suggests a bit of a practice session.

A trial run.

And then Castle gets his _mouth_ on her, and shit. 

Motherfuck. 

She was a lot of the things he’d guessed she was and so many more than he didn’t. She smells like cherries and tastes just about as tangy and sweet, all hot little tongue and unafraid teeth, and she weighs nothing when she leans into him. Her sigh floats from her body like a romantic little ghost and he wants to capture it. Wants to bring it right back into him and feed it back to her at an alarmingly attentive rate and Castle is tired of holding back. Tired of the seemingly endless time it had taken to bring them here, and before he is quite aware they’re on the bed. _Her_ bed. After everything.

And then she laughs. Kate _laughs_ and Castle starts sinking so fast into feelings for her that he is happy and helpless to do anything but drown, absolutely, and pray that it never ends. He has trouble dragging his mouth away from hers all the way out the door that first, incredible, one for the damn books time and he gets a distinct feeling that it’s indicative of the times to come.

(And for the record, no, he took that picture _himself._ After thirty minutes of brainstorming, fifteen perching his phone just so on his laptop, and another ten of timed pictures that ended in wrong angles or blurry photos from it sliding down just when he had the pose _perfect_ . Kate laughs, later, so hard that she almost _wheezes_ at the blurry ones where it’s all one big fuzzy eye the crooked line of his nose and hair that looks like its free falling through space. 

He is not insulted at all when she makes it his contact picture.)

Suddenly, Castle life is flooded with new images of her, stamped in his head, wreathed in all the words he says to her and all the ones Castle doesn’t. 

_Those gorgeous, gorgeous fucking lips, dropped open. Helpless. Weak to what his own were doing to her, licking and sucking and tasting just like so, doing everything in Castle’s power to keep her leg twitching in its grip in his bicep, to keep her hands tangled in his hair. To run his bristled cheek against her inner thigh and kiss her there after her bowstring flew so tight it fell to pieces._

(Kate fits in his passenger seat. It’s a ridiculous thought, but it crosses his mind the first time she hesitantly slides in. Waits anxiously for her to say something, anything about the black leather interior and deep green exterior of the mustang that he’d scraped together money for years to buy. It’s not about the size of her, or how far up the seat is pulled, or the stitched fresh smelling passenger seat, that says that she fits, but it’s all about the slash of a feral grin that appears a moment later. “ _Nice._ ” She says, all sharp teeth and appreciative tone as she slides her long fingers over the sides of the door and the rest of the upholstery. “Please tell me you let her loose sometimes.”

“I was unaware my car was a she.”

“All cars should be she’s. Especially ones with engines that purr.”

Something rumbles from Castles chest at the way her tongue rolls over those last r’s and he only barely stops himself from kissing her just for saying that. He turns on the engine, the thrum spreading through the whole vehicle, and her grin gets even bigger. “Doing you was worth it just for this car, I’m thinking.”

“Or, Beckett, consider - doing me _in_ the car.” He suggests, wrapping one big hand over the stick shift like it was the heart of her instead.

Kate hums and buckles her seatbelt, settling in. “How about you take me somewhere that you can show me exactly how fast she runs, and then ask me that question again?”)

_They fight, over her bitmoji. She insists that the outfit isn’t quite right and he tells her that she would look incredible in booty shorts and a crop top if it wasn’t New York in October and she lunges for the outstretched hand with the phone so hard she topples him over. There’s a lot of shrieking and accusations and his deep, deep laughter, and ends in her wrists enclosed in his big hands and her straining to meet his mouth while he kissed every single last protestation out of her._

_And changes it to the turtleneck and jeans that he’d been planning on since the beginning, anyway, before she leaves._

(It’s not that Kate’s tight laced, really. She’s not married to any rule book but her own - even if sweet tasting smoke and secret spots hadn’t taught Castle that already - and it is a special kind of victory to get her to break from it. To see that flame in Kate’s eyes blaze full force at anything she found new or exciting or frustratingly hilarious was one of Castle’s new favorite things.

Like now.

This was _definitely_ a new favorite thing.

Both of their eyes locked falsely riveted to the romcom he’d bought them tickets to at one of the newer, two person joined seats theaters. The blanket that he’d brought did a perfect job at keeping them warm...and shielding the journey of his fingers to short, short hem of the skirt Castle had seen in her closer and special requested that she wore. Hid the deft pull of damp fabric to the side, the noise from the screen covering Kate’s sharp intake of breath, the blanket doing it’s only shitty job in covering how absolutely fucking into this, uh, _movie_ that he was watching.

Wait. Tightly laced. That’s what he was talking about. 

Nothing more rewarding then seeing them fall absolutely, shuddering apart.)

_Her skin smells like cherries all the time. Strongest when fresh out of the shower, something he double checks the rare moments at his place when he ignores her running commentary of how sexy his bathroom is to unwind the fluffy towel from her form and show her how just how sexy that bathroom owner thought_ her _to be._

(It is _not_ devastatingly cute that he doesn’t have to work hard to breath with her on top of him, her whole form rising and falling ever so slightly with the inflation of his lungs.)

_Kate tucks into him so easily he forgets that days before he saw her for the first time he’d been missing someone with much sharper, unforgiving bits and who’s red didn’t hold a candle to the deep purple red hues Castle softly, so gently, ran his hands through that first time she falls asleep on top of him. She drowns in his t-shirt, dragged on after a particularly vigorous round, and she’d clambered on top of him without even asking. She snuggles her head into the underside of his chin and murmurs that she should probably get started on her discussion response and then is out five minutes flat later._

(It does _not_ make him want to keep her around forever, all of these reasons and many, many more. Because trial runs do not equal forever and he is so, so much dumber than he thought he ever could be and it was too late now.)

He gets used to her, to having her shove her cold feet at him at his stupid jokes and burn toast, the only thing she can’t cook decently well. He gets used to her licking endless different parts of him to get when she wants, the easy kick of her ankles crossing on his dashboard, the coffee order he now knows like the back of his hand. Gets used to the unbelievable heaven that it was to bury himself to the hilt inside her, the defiant, passionate pull of her muscles around him and how _lucky_ he was to feel it, though Castle guesses it will never lose its magic, out of everything else. With everything else. 

Gets used to constantly thinking of more new and interesting ways to let her know how much he appreciates being to tell her that he can’t wait to have her bent over her bed again and that he couldn’t stop thinking about touching her since the last time he did. Tell her that its her that Castle dreams about in the shower with a wrap of his hand and it’s her that he thinks about when something funny happens and she’s not there to witness it. Gets used to all the different tones and flavors of that wonderful laugh and make a few of the brightest sparkles her eyes gets and how she hates when he messes with her but she really doesn’t.

Kate doesn’t do messy, it seems, unless it’s with him, and Castle’s fine with that. He’s infinitely pleased at being that little exception, that not so little Secret, but under it all there is a something building up behind his ribs and his eyes and inside the muscles of his heart. He was absolutely right because she was worth a dozen, a hundred jobs at a million universities and it’s a good thing that sole act of being with her gave him more energy to write in his off hours than he ever had before and he’s almost done his second book and he dares to say it’s better than the first, and Castle knows it’s because of her. He definitely keeps his cheeks scruffy and a smidgen dark for every absent stroke of the back of her hand along it, every shiver from the rough brush against any part of her, for her whispered secret words of how much Kate did, in fact, like it. He lets himself get warm and comfortable and continues to sink, sink and drown.

He doesn’t know how deep he’s sunk and finally fell until he hits the bottom of that fucking well and cracks all open, bleeding and bewildered and confused when she lies about who he is and what they are and shoves him out the front door like she can’t wait to see him gone.

He doesn’t know he's in absolute, irrevocable love with her her until she ends it on her front porch to save his hide and a little bit of hers and Castle has not. One. Fucking. Clue. Where to go from here.


End file.
